Tune up your PPC campaign for Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is just around the corner. The day after Thanksgiving traditionally kicks off the holiday shopping season in the brick and mortar stores, in what has come to be known as Black Friday. However, for online ecommerce retailers the biggest day of the shopping season is the Monday following turkey day, or Cyber Monday.

Here are three things to think about to get your online shopping carts oiled up and ready to roll down the virtual aisles.

• Review last year’s best keywords – Click on keywords, set your timeline for 2011 between black Friday and the new year of 2012, and sort by conversions. The highest revenue producing keywords from last year’s holiday season will rise to the top. Think about increasing those bids to get your ads in one of the first three positions. That’s where your click through and conversion rates will be the highest.

• Confirm your conversion tracking is working correctly – Conversions are to ecommerce as a full cash register is to a store in the mall. Head over to your website’s thank you page and confirm that the code snippet is installed. Let your website designer know if anything seems out of the ordinary. As of October 1st Google offers a tag manager, which is a much easier and more flexible way to code and track your website.

• Create a strong call to action – Review the best ads from last year. Which ads had the best click through rate? Which ads had the best conversion rate? Do they all have a strong call to action? Use those phrases, which describe your online store’s best prices, holiday sales, and one of a kind items. Phrases like “on sale now,” “limited time offer,” and “big holiday sale,” all convey a sense of urgency to act today.

If history is any indication, there are some big online retailing Mondays coming our way. Be ready to increase your pay per click budgets, and insure your campaigns are hitting on all cylinders. A well executed Google Adwords campaign will increase revenue for your firm, and can do it at a very high return on your advertising spend.

One last thing: think about a remarketing campaign for customers who abandon their shopping carts. They are interested and maybe just need a gentle nudge.

If you have any questions or comments contact me at: truenorth@tds.net